Over 2000 Union soldiers, travelers and team were crammed aboard the steamboat Sultana, accredited to carry 376. Graft, greed, congestion, a poorly maintained boat, as well as the Mississippi River was swollen with springtime snowmelt conspired together to create a calamity. On April 27, 1865, the boat's central heating boilers exploded, triggering the most awful maritime calamity in US background.